Last week I picked up some kind of stomach bug. Me, in bed, after 9:00 a.m. was enough to worry Shiva. She kept pacing in and out of the bedroom, making little quizzical noises down in her chest, laying her big chin on the side of the mattress, snuffling at me and pawing the blankets, whuffing softly in distress with that worried expression that's peculiar to the breed. Bimmer was curled up in his customary position at the foot of the bed, craning his neck around to check on me and sing to me occasionally. I laid there as still as I possibly could in a hopeless effort to avoid the inevitable. When the inevitable became, well, inevitable, Shiva had taken a break and was getting a drink of water, getting that snout all nice and cold and wet.

Poor Shiva! She didn't know WHAT to do when she heard me in the bathroom. While I was cringing over the commode, (trust me, it'll be QUITE a while before I want any fish again) she crashed through the door and stood behind me making her strange little worried Chewbacca croon down deep in her throat. When she just couldn't stand it anymore, I felt her stick her head up under the back of my robe and then poke me in the cheek (NOT the on the face) with that perfectly chilled snoot. It was impossible for me to make any reply to her or reassure her at just that moment, so she just kept prodding me, getting a little more worried and insistent at each nudge.

After it was all over, I'd have hurt my sides laughing, except that they were already sore, and truthfully, I was terrified that if I laughed I might start the whole process over again. There she stood, tail slowly wagging back and forth, hitting the bathroom door facings, setting a perfect andante tempo, that big butt samba-ing in counterpoint, one big tear squeezing out of the corner of each eye.

Aww, sounds like she really cares about you. When my dad was sick, I visited him and brought Maddie along. When he was in the bathroom tossing his cookies (sorry guys ) Maddie barked at the strange noise repetitivly until he stopped. She was alarming me that an introuder was near by the sound of her barks, my dad did very much sound alien, but he would get mad at her but when he was finnished he would laugh. It was pretty funny
Its just the opposite when I'm sick. She'll pace and whine and poke me with her nose just like Shiva (it sounds like.)

24 hours is usually the limit for me with that kind of bug. The trouble, though, is that the 24 hours I've got it seems like 24 DAYS! I don't know that Shiva's big, cold, wet dog snoot on my rear end helped any, but it did distract me from the worst part. She's a real character.

Bronki had a respitory infection twice..bad enough that I had the shower on steaming up the bathroom in hopes to ease his breathing..keeping him propped up because if he layed flat he coughed so hard..when I had a cough he was so concerned. I cannot tell u the pain that dog walked me through. MAry is right with her secret you know..she is my angel, and I am hers. Together we make our heaven.

That sounds like some of the things I went through when my Gonzo was fighting FIV. You just keep on with them as long as they fight to live. I had almost a full year with him after he was diagnosed; we battled through several respiratory infections.

I still see him sometimes, just out of the corner of my eye, a blue wisp flitting by.

__________________In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves. ~Buddha

Stupid is the most notoriously incurable and contagious disease known to mankind. If you find yourself in close proximity to someone infected with stupid, walk away as soon as said infection is noted.

There are few things more nauseating than pure obedience. ~ Kvothe

***8206;"silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation."
— Rumi
Be a god. Know when to shut up.

Bronki was only sick for about 20 days. We did two rounds of anitbiotics before they xrayed his lungs and saw the tumour. It is so odd that he slept in front of the space heater one night drying his ol nose up until it looked like a shoe that had been left in the field for years. Mom told me heat killed cancer cells, and I have to wonder if he instinctively knew that. I took the space heater up after that and maybe I shouldnt have. He loved the space heat and so do I. It is our "poor man's fireplace". All the dogs love to stretch out in front of it on chilly nights. When I took Bronki in the last time I wasn't prepared to be told cancer but somehow I knew. I said it before the doc did. I made Bronki a promise when he was born that I would always love him (I said this as I opened his sack) and I would protect him, that i would never let him suffer. I thought then that he was to be my son's dog. Little did I know what this puppy had in store for me! When the vet told me what is was we put him down then and there. He gave him a seditive first in the vein and gave me a few minutes alone. I just slumped to the floor, crying my eyes out and told him how much I loved him and to wait for me. Then he was in a box. A box in the back seat. The 1 hour drive home with him in the box made me howl with grief.

Feline Immunodeficiency Virus - the feline version of HIV. I've read that cats were one of the animals used in research early on when we became aware of HIV. I can't help but wonder if the feline strain wasn't developed in a lab and some poor infected creature got out and passed along a man-made virus into the feline population.

I understand that drive home with howling grief. It's the cry of a soul in such pain and despair. You want to lay down next to them and join them, but you can't, there are others depending on you. So your despair and crushing grief and all your rage at the disease or circumstance that has stolen this beautiful, innocent creature's years away comes out in those awful, keening howls - the cry of the Ban-Sidhe.

__________________In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves. ~Buddha

Stupid is the most notoriously incurable and contagious disease known to mankind. If you find yourself in close proximity to someone infected with stupid, walk away as soon as said infection is noted.

There are few things more nauseating than pure obedience. ~ Kvothe

***8206;"silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation."
— Rumi
Be a god. Know when to shut up.